12 Free Strategies For Boosting Your Website Traffic

Transcription

1 12 Free Strategies For Boosting Your Website Traffic

2 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC CONTENTS Contents Introduction Strategy 1 - SEO Strategy 2 - Links Strategy 3 - Blog Strategy 4 - Twitter Strategy 5 - Forum Posting Strategy 6 - Newsletters Strategy 7 - Articles and Ebooks Strategy 8 - Incentives Strategy 9 - Interactivity Strategy 10 - All Marketing Strategy 11 - Facebook Strategy 12 - Online Directories Conclusion

3 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC INTRODUCTION Introduction In today s business world, we rely heavily upon our websites to promote our businesses and to communicate with our prospects. Therefore, we want as many hits on our websites as possible, because all website visitors are potential customers and potential sources of revenue. Often, many business owners set up a website and think that just having the site is enough. But it s not there are billions of websites out there, so you need to do something clever to attract users to yours. This business guide gives you twelve strategies to increase the traffic to your website and therefore expose more potential customers to your products or services. These strategies are all simple to implement and best of all, they are completely free! Please visit the Bloomtools website for more helpful business information and guides. 5 Quick Tips You can get more website traffic by: Boosting your ranking in Google search results Offering incentives and a fun, interactive website Getting involved in social networking sites Promoting your website address at every opportunity Keeping your contacts updated with regular communication 3

4 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 1 Strategy 1 Use SEO to improve your search engine ranking One of the most popular ways that potential customers find you website is through search engines, such as Google. When users conduct a search, they usually visit the first few listings that are displayed, so if your website is not listed near the top you won t get many visitors from search engines. However, there are many Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques that you can use to improve your ranking in Google search listings and get more traffic from search engines. These are the three most important Need SEO help? Bloomtools offers two Search Engine Optimisation packages - the SEO Action Plan which outlines strategies for your business and the SEO Program where we manage your SEO for you. > Read more SEO techniques: Get popular/high ranked websites to link to your site Google decides the importance of every web page using its patented PageRank algorithm, and then lists these pages in search results according to their rank. If you can get other websites, particularly important and popular websites, to link to yours, you will increase the rank of your site and get your business displayed higher in Google search result listings. Choose your keywords carefully You can help Google determine the content of you website by carefully choosing the keywords used within your copy. Choose the most important words that describe your business that you think people will use when they search for your site on Google. Then make sure Google can find these words on your website by putting them in important places such as the page title, headings, links and bold text. Have an XML sitemap of your site easily accessible Create a text link to every page in your site, or have an XML sitemap of your website s page structure readily accessible so Google can easily read the content of your site. Additionally, your website should be constructed using the appropriate HTML coding to ensure that Google can read all relevant content. All website should have a general site map to help visitors navigate the site as well as an XML sitemap that is automatically generated to ensure it is always up to date. With a Bloomtools 3G Website, many basic SEO features are built in, such as a general and an XML sitemap and a simple keyword editor. > Learn more 4

5 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 2 Strategy 2 Get other popular websites to link to yours Another great way to increase The easiest websites to get your traffic to your website is to get site listed on are those of your as many reputable websites as business alliances and associates possible to display a link to your as well as information websites for site. your industry or local area, because they usually will put a link to your Not only will this improve your website on their page for free. Google PageRank and get you listed higher, it will also expose many You could also profile the more potential customers to your demographics (age, gender, business. occupation) and psychographics (likes, dislikes, opinions) of your It is important to make sure that the target audience and think about website your link appears on has some of the other products and a similar target audience to yours, services they may use and then so your link is being seen by actual approach these businesses for links. prospects. For example, a mortgage broker How does Google PageRank work? Think of a website as a research paper. The way that a research paper can be determined as important is if many other research papers refer to it as a source in their reference list. Google s PageRank algorithm works largely in the same way. A webpage s importance (based on a scale of 1 to 10) is computed by working out how many back links (websites linking to a page) there are and the importance of each of these links. If lots of important sites (with high PageRanks) link to a site then it is regarded as important. could get a link on a real estate agent s site because they have a similar market. Some useful techniques for getting links include: Article Write an article in your area of expertise and get it displayed on a website or in an newsletters with a link to your site. > Learn more Testimonial Write a testimonial for an alliance or a client and get it displayed on their website with a link to your site. > Learn more Advertisement Place an advertisement on the other website with a link to your site. This could be a graphic or a text advertisement, but text is more effective for link purposes because you can use keywords. Sponsor Sponsor a local organisation or group, like a sports club or chamber of commerce, and get a link to your site placed on their site. 5

6 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 3 Strategy 3 Write and publish a blog on your website Blogs, or weblogs, are popular on If you write a blog that is lighthearted and funny, and actually the internet at the moment and are a useful tool for businesses to promote sounds like it is written by a real themselves and attract visitors to person, you will be able to attract a their websites. loyal readership. Blogs that contain company news You can weave company messages and updates are a great way to throughout your blog to inform keep your audience informed. readers about your company and Alternatively, a blog that is written keep your brand at the top of their by a particular member of staff will mind. give your business a friendly face and help strengthen your customer If your blog gets a reputation as a relations. good read, it will become popular and your website traffic will increase dramatically. A great strategy for businesses is to write a blog containing helpful tips and information on a topic that you are an expert on. If your advice is genuinely valuable, your customers and prospects will read your blog regularly. More importantly, they will come to trust you and view your business as a leader. If you are going to write a blog like this, write regularly (at least once a week) and make sure your information is clear and accurate. It s also a great idea to encourage comments from your readers, which builds a conversation and gets more people involved - try ending your entry with something like share your story below. With the Bloomtools Blog Manager, you can easily write your blog and display it on your website. > Learn more Blog listing sites Once you have started writing your blog, you need to promote it. Here are some great sites to get your blog listed on:

7 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 4 Strategy 4 Start Twittering Twitter is the latest social that features your products or your networking phenomenon. It s an branding. online community where users micro-blog - share their thoughts or Follow people opinions in a short blurb of less than Once you re set up on Twitter, 140 characters. you need to start connecting with people. You can follow other Celebrities use it to update their fans, people, which means you get to see business gurus use it to share their all the tweets they post. knowledge, everyday people use to communicate with their friends and There are many interesting people companies are starting to use to to on Twitter that you can follow, from raise their profile and attract website Google to Barack Obama - click on traffic. the Find People link to search for It s a very handy business tool, especially for generating website traffic, so here s our tips for getting started: Sign up Go to and sign up for an account. Put in all your details and choose a professional username because everyone sees this. Then upload a picture (a logo works well) and choose a background. To make the most impact for your business, make your own background people. Another handy tool for finding interesting people to follow is www. search.twitter.com where you can type in a keyword and find all the people that are talking about that topic. Generally if you follow someone, they will follow you too so the more people you add, the more you can expose your business. Get tweeting A tweet is the message you post on your Twitter and it can be any content you like, up to 140 characters. Use your Twitter to share company news, new products, special offers or even just a link to an interesting article you have written. Most businesses will make their tweet something short and interesting with a link to their website. Go to www. tr.im to shorten your URLs so they can fit in the 140 character limit. It s important that your tweets are interesting and valuable to the people that are reading them - people will soon stop following you if all your posts are just advertising your business. Twitter is all about visibility, so aim to add a new tweet every day or two. Tip We ve just introduced a new function in Ezy Communicator to easily publish your articles to Twitter. When you are adding an article, simply put your Twitter login details into the system and a tweet with a link to your site will be posted on your Twitter automatically. 7

8 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 5 Strategy 5 Get involved in forums Forums or discussion boards were one of the first forms of social networking on the internet and are still very popular today. A forum is basically an online chat room where users have conversations with other people about certain topics. The topic really depends on the website that the forum is on - it could be anything from fishing, to computers, to advertising. The biggest and most successful forums are usually on third-party sites, like fan sites, because they have more credibility. So how can you use a forum to promote your business? First, you need to do some research. Search the internet for forums that relate to your industry or products - eg. an electrician could use a DIY handyman forum, a shoe retailer could use a fashion forum or a personal trainer could use a fitness forum. Sign up for a few forums that relate to your business and read through the content on there. Then you need to start posting. Find a conversation (sometimes called a thread) you can participate in, add your comment and put a link to your website at the bottom. Your comments need to be genuinely valuable, so take the time to think of some advice or information that is relevant to the other forum users. For example, the electrician could answer someone s question about outdoor wiring, the shoe retailer could tell users about the latest brand of shoes in stock or the personal trainer could share his opinion on the latest workout techniques...the possibilities are endless. Posting useful information also positions you as the expert and gives people a real reason to click on your website link. Here are some tips to help you make the most of forums: Be accurate - if you are going to be giving advice, make sure it s correct otherwise you could damage your business reputation. Proofread - spell check before you post because nothing looks more unprofessional than spelling mistakes. Don t spam - if you just use the forum to put your website link everywhere without taking the time to add a relevant comment, you will get banned from the forum, plus it makes you look bad. Do it often - the more you participate, the more credibility you will gain and users will look to you for information, so try to do several posts per week. Also, try this strategy with blogs - find some relevant to your industry and add informative comments with your website link. 8

9 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 6 Strategy 6 Send newsletters that link to your website Sending regular newsletters is a great way to stay in touch with your customers and prospects to keep your brand at the top of their mind. Newsletters have the potential to increase your website traffic enormously, but many businesses are missing out on this, because they don t link the newsletter directly to their website. Stuck for ideas? Here are some great topic ideas for your newsletter articles: Product reviews Client success stories Interviews/profiles Lifestyle pieces Company news Expert advice and tips In order to increase your website traffic, I suggest that when you send out a newsletter, have a short snippet of each article in the actual to get the reader interested. Then have a read more link, so when the reader clicks on this link they are taken directly to your website to read the full article. This is a very easy strategy to increase your website traffic because it requires absolutely no time or effort you are already writing the articles and sending out the newsletter, so why not link it directly to your site? And who knows, after they read the article, they might start browsing your site and make an inquiry or even a purchase. As well as linking your articles to your site, why not include special offers in your that link directly to a page on your website. Create a small advertisement or text link that will appeal to your target market, and place it in your newsletter to increase your site traffic. The ideal tool for sending newsletters is the Bloomtools Ezy Communicator: Ezy Communicator Communicate with your customers and stay top of mind with our user-friendly database marketing system, featuring and SMS marketing, ecards, surveys and event management. > Learn more 1300 ezy ezy ( ) 9

10 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 7 Strategy 7 Write and share your own articles and ebooks Writing articles and ebooks on topics that you are knowledgeable about is a great way to position you and your business as the expert in your chosen field. And you can do so much more with these than just having them on your website for visitors to read you can make them work for you and increase your website traffic. I suggest that you put every article and ebook you write on listing websites. All you have to do is register for an account and then you can submit as many as you want. Then, when people find you articles or ebooks on these sites and choose to read them, they will be linked directly to your site or presented with your website address. This means that they go to your website to read the article or to get more information, which increases your website traffic and exposes more potential customers to your business. Make sure that throughout your article or ebook, you regularly reference your website address, so that readers can directly access your website. Where can I list my articles? There are thousands of article and ebook submission sites that you can join and submit to. Some great free ones include: Make these links are interesting by using an incentive, such as to find out more about using this strategy for your business, click here, with click here hyperlinked to the relevant page of your website. Once you have got your article or ebook published, you need to encourage people that have already read it to share it with their friends and colleagues. A great way to do this is to include a send to a friend link at the bottom of your article or several times throughout your ebook. For example, you may write If you know anyone who would gain value from reading this ebook/article, please click here to send them a copy. You should also use articles with your alliances - get your articles on their website and in their newsletters as a guest expert, with a link to your website of course. 10

11 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 8 Strategy 8 Give your website visitors something for free Visitors to your website are just like away, so you need to have a strategy all other people they love getting in place to capture their contact something for nothing. details so you can add them to your database and target them with your So if you want to increase your future marketing. An incentive is website traffic, give people an perfect for this because it gives them incentive to come to your site. An a reason to give you their details. incentive will get customers returning to your site regularly, and encourage Competitions them to spread word about it to their Run a competition on your website friends and colleagues. with a prize that is of value to your visitors, such as a free product or Most visitors to your webiste won t service. Make sure you capture purchase or contact you straight the addresses of entrants for your database, and don t forget to research the legal requirements. > Read more Free giveaways Offer your visitors something for free in return for joining your mailing list or becoming a member of your site. A great free giveaway is an ebook or whitepaper that you have written on your area of expertise it is useful for visitors and positions you as an authority on the topic. Vouchers Give website visitors vouchers and discount offers that they can either redeem online or print out and take into your store. They are easy to make, and you don t need to offer a big discount, because people will use them no matter what. You can promote these incentives in your newsletters and marketing with an advertisement or link to take the reader directly to the relevant part of your site. You should also promote them to your alliance s database and clients with an ad on their site and in their newsletters. Also, promote them offline too to get even more traffic. 11

12 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 9 Strategy 9 Make your website interactive and fun People are more likely to return to your website and tell other people about it if it offers them more than just somewhere to buy your product. By making your website interactive and fun, you will draw people back again and again, keeping your brand at the top of their mind. Some great ideas for making your website fun are: An online forum Discussion groups are a great way to get people interacting with your site. You can set up discussion topics that are related to your brand or industry, and give your visitors the opportunity to choose their own topics, because they are more likely to return to your site if there is something to do on it. An online forum will establish a community around your brand and build loyalty, which will encourage repeat purchases and word of mouth promotion. Forums are also a great way to get feedback from your customers and get them involved in your company. > Learn more Polls These can be simply for fun, to get people involved with your site, or they can be used to get brief opinions from your customers. Remember, polls usually only have two answer options ( either or ), so they need to very simple. > Learn More Surveys If you are seeking more in-depth information from your customers and prospects, why not create a survey and display it on your website? These can be a great way to find out the views and opinions of your site visitors, which you can use to improve your site or products, and to get your prospects interacting with your site. > Learn more Quizzes Combine general knowledge questions with information about your industry, to entertain users while educating them about your brand. A great way to get people coming back to your site is to have a new quiz each week, and you could even set it up as a competition with a prize for each weekly winner. Use several of these strategies to keep peple on your site longer and draw them back regularly. 12

13 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 10 Strategy 10 Promote your website in all your marketing It sounds obvious, but you would be telephone directories because they surprised at the number of business feel that, in the age of the Internet, people that just don t promote their they are outdated. But remember, not website address in all of their online all your customers are Internet-savvy, and offline marketing. so having these ads can be useful for attracting customers. And if you do Clearly, the more places that your have one, make sure you include your website address is advertised, the website address, so you can direct more people will see it and the more more potential customers to your site. website traffic you will get, so it makes sense to put your website Uniforms address on absolutely everything. Your staff don t just wear their uniforms in store or in the office. Here are a few places that you should They walk to and from work, catch always include your website address: the bus, visit the supermarket and do the banking and the mail imagine Business cards how many potential customers they While everyone puts their contact details on their business card, including their address, many forget to include their website address. So make sure you put your website on your business cards, and give them out to as many people as possible to increase your website traffic. Telephone directories A lot of business today don t advertise their businesses in would walk past on a daily basis. Take advantage of this by printing your website address boldly on your uniforms. Advertising Many potential customers are exposed to your brand through your advertising, either in newspapers and magazines, or on television or radio. So, increase your website traffic by including your address in all your offline advertising. Mail-outs Most businesses send promotional material out to their current and potential customers, whether it is brochures, bills, pricelists or catalogues. Use these materials to increase your website traffic by featuring your website address on all mail-outs. signatures This is the most easily overlooked of online marketing tools. Include you website address in the signature of every staff member in your business, so that all recipients have the opportunity to visit your site. Remember, people need to see your website address a few times before they will visit it so put it on everything to increase exposure. 13

14 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 11 Strategy 11 Create a page on Facebook Facebook is taking over the world. If the social networking site was a country, it would have the world s 8th largest population with more than 150 million active members. You might already have your own Facebook profile for interacting with your friends and family, but you can also have one for your business and it s a great traffic and lead generation tool. There are a few options for adding your business to Facebook but the most effective way is creating a page (Facebook doesn t allow businesses to create standard profiles anymore). A page works in the same way as a profile in that you can have pictures and communicate with other users, but it is specifically designed for businesses. Users can become a fan of your page and you can send them regular updates about your business. The best thing about a page is that it is public so any Facebook user can find your page and become a fan. Also, your page also appears in your fan s friend s Suggestions and Highlights lists which exposes even more people to your business. To create a page, go to www. facebook.com and click on the link on the home page to create a business page. Complete the signup process then follow these steps to get it working for you: Make your page Upload your business logo as your profile picture. Then update your profile with information about your business, including a link to your website, company overview, some product information and your mission statement. You can also upload photo albums, so put up some pictures of your products and your team - you will get better results from Facebook if you give your business a casual, friendly image. Send regular updates You need to really take advantage of your page to get the word out about your business. Update your status once a day so it appears on your fan s homepage and send weekly updates about your business. Content can include articles, case studies, new product launches, event invitations and links to your website. Another great strategy is to offer special deals for fans - this will encourage them to contact your business and to tell their friends. Promote your page You can t add fans to your page yourself so you need to use other ways to promote it. Put a link to your Facebook page on your website and in your newsletters. You also should get all your current clients on board so their friends are exposed to your business. Send them an with a special incentive to become a fan of your page, such as a gift voucher or whitepaper. 14

15 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC STRATEGY 12 Strategy 12 Get your business listed in online directories Another easy and free way to get people to your site is to get your business listed in an online directory There are numerous directories that you can potentially be listed in, such as industry directories, chambers of commerce directories or geographical directories. All you need to do is conduct some research on the Internet and you will find lots of directories that you can add your business to for free. These listings increase the number of ways that potential customers can find your website, and will subsequently increase your traffic. As well as getting your business listed in these general directories, you should also place an entry in directories for your local area, for your industry or products and any clubs or groups you are a member of. If you are a client of Bloomtools, you are able to automatically get your site listed on for free. Not only does this site provide a way for your customers to find you, it also boosts your PageRank by linking to your website. Here are some good general directories for you to list your business in: Please let us know if you have a site with us and would like your site listed in this directory, or if you would like more information. How do I get my business listed? Getting your business in an online directory is easy. Once you ve chosen the directory you want to appear in, you will need to contact them and purchase a place. Prices really vary, depending on the size of your listing and on the popularity and reputation of the directory. After you ve paid, you will need to submit a short description of your business, your contact details and possibly a photo or logo to the directory and they will make your listing live usually within a week. 15

16 BOOSTING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC CONCLUSION Conclusion So there you have it twelve really easy and free ways to increase the traffic to your website and potentially increase your sales. Good luck implementing these strategies on your own website! Please contact us via our website or by calling us on if you would like one of our trained consultants to evaluate your business and recommend more strategies for you. 16